In what has become somewhat of an annual tradition around here, the time has come once again to run a confidential earnings poll to track the general state of the online advertising/web publishing industry through a sample of our membership.

In the interests of consistency and tradition, this poll will share the same criteria as Steve's previous efforts, with the one significant change being its focus on fiscal/financial years rather than calendar years. The reasoning behind this is that reports generated for tax reporting processes are more likely to give an accurate representation of a company's annual earnings activity than a calendar-year report.

Time span:
As per the discussion below, it's is clear that many of us work from different fiscal years. The figure that should be put forth in the poll response above must reflect gross operating profits generated by our members during their last complete annual reporting period. This can be July 03 - June 04 if that is your standard financial year, Jan 03 - Dec 03 if you have aligned your financial and calendar years, etc.

The following instructions are an approximate replication of those used in last year's poll:

dude,Its nice idea but pretty late.
Now everybody is thinking of 2004-2005 fiscal numbers.
Who wants to remember the year when profitibility was rare in dotcom industry?
Anyway I hope ,next year, u wont be that late .
How about starting with half yearly numbers??????

Originally posted by coolbuddy
dude,Its nice idea but pretty late.
Now everybody is thinking of 2004-2005 fiscal numbers.

There's not a company on planet Earth who will be able to verify their 2004-2005 numbers for months, whereas we're right in the middle of reporting season for 2003-2004 fiscal in most major markets right now.

In fact, unless I'm mistaken, the US fiscal year ends September 30, which means that this post is being made a mere 22 days after the close of 2003-2004 fiscal. No meaningful numbers are likely to emerge before then so unless you're interested in working from projections, I don't know how this thread could be construed as late.

Admittedly, those based in Canada, India or Japan, for example, may have long closed the books on 2003-2004, but they're still nowhere near finalising next year results given that my calendar still says we're in 2004.

Am I missing something? Is it too confusing working from fiscal years rather than calendar?

the best option would be either calender or go for every quarter.
Infact quarter reporting will be the best.
Thats more like getting ready for nasdaq listing.
hahahahha
atleast i hope to get listed one day.
But jokes apart geekvillage has the capabilty to be there one day.
Have I taken the thread too far off.But arnt dotcommeres supposed to be wierd and daydreamers??????????????

Here in the URL, tax wise our year is from January 1st to December 31st, in the eyes of the IRS, so many of us won't know how this year will be like until about the end of the holiday season.

2003 was $17,828.00, and this year'll be way higher than that.

:::US fiscal year ends September 30

I think that's about when the US Government ends there fiscal year and starts war over the next years budget. Almost all business in the US go with Jan 1st to December 31st when it comes to keeping track of there earnings.

There is no such thing as a "standard" fiscal year in the US. Companies can declare their fiscal year as starting with any month they choose, so long as they then continue to follow that same pattern consistently. Our company happens to use the calendar year (January thru December) as our fiscal year.

Thanks for the clarification. The following guideline adjusts the criteria accordingly:
- For the purposes of this poll, we'll keep the base criterion as the 2003-2004 fiscal year where possible. Companies that use the calendar year as their reporting period should use figures from their last complete annual P&L (Jan 2003-December 2003) instead.
- For clarity, the poll above reflects gross operating profits generated by our members during their last complete annual reporting period.

While the sample size at present is insufficient for any meaningful analysis, it is already producing some interesting results when compared to years prior. It seems that fewer members are in the red and that many of those who are generating profits have extended their earnings quite substantially given the relatively short time span that separates these three polls.

The participation rate is also looking good and may itself indicate greater confidence in the market.